The former Dr Pepper Bottling Plant is being renovated for new office space. The recruiting firm Personify will be moving about 70 employees to the new space on Dawson Street from their current Cary location.

Maurer Architecture has a great blog post about the work taking place at the site and I recommend readers jump over to see more.

The new mezzanine structure will connect to the existing second story which once held the bottling offices. The original second story faced Dawson Street and was closed off to the adjoining gable-roofed warehouse space. Now the upper wall between the two spaces has been eliminated and the mezzanine will provide a nice full height connection between the entry level and the upper story.

Comments

Leo, interestingly I took a picture of this building yesterday as well (assuming you were there yesterday) from this exact same spot. I was snapping shots of the all art deco buildings we have downtown (I am no expert but perceive this one to be an extremely restrained style of art deco…perhaps experts can enlighten the situation further). My other shots were of The Pit, Nash Tavern, Clouds Brewing and of course the Creamery. Anyway a bunch of suits were outside apparently admiring their new digs. This is another nice addition of modern jobs….I also read read yesterday about a California IT company bringing 20 employees to space above Raleigh WIne Shop. For me personally, I am happy to see so many of these smaller groups rehabbing and using our older buildings downtown (Google, Leoforce et.al). More so than a 50 story headquarters, I think lots and lots of these situations make the sort of downtown I prefer.

I’m certainly not a commercial real estate expert but I would think that Charter South being offered for sale is a positive sign. If the developer can cash out, (s)he can pump more money into the next project.

What follows is news from a bit outside of the downtown area we like to focus on and a apologize for that. Still, the recent announcement (in TBJ) that the “Gateway Shopping Center” at corner of Capital and Crabtree will be redeveloped bodes well for the future of this corridor.

The long term plan for Capital blvd in this area is to bring n/b and s/b lanes together and create a park across from where the new Greyhound bus station now sits. This whole area is going to be transformed in the next several years I predict.

To be more specific, the lanes will be combined to the west of Pigeon House Creek (I would imagine this would have to impact the interchange with Atlantic as well). Primarily FEMA stormwater grant money has been used to acquire and demolish properties in the flood plain here. The City has insinuated, too, that correcting blight in the area is an additional goal as well, and the Gateway project is precisely what they hoped would happen for the remaining properties outside the flood plain. Also a greenway will be constructed from Crabtree Creek, through this new park, and connect to teh future Devereaux Meadows Park. Additionally, the new downtown plan suggests a bikeway/greenlane from Devereaux Meadows all the way to Dix/Rocky Branch greenway…but I’m getting off on quite an aside now…

I’m thinking that either the 23 stories or the 255 one has to be a misprint. I remember seeing a side by side of North and South towers when they were proposing 22 stories and the North is significantly taller (A lot more than 40 ft).

The Planning Commission pdf doc mentions 255′ numerous times. Doesn’t appear to be typo. Just a lot of low ceilings. It also mentions the 255′ as a requested increase in height. But as Dwight mentioned, the last proposed height was 316′. Another box.

Very happy to see it started either way, but I really wish our city council would insist upon taller buildings for the downtown core before approving. It’s not like if they told them it had to be 500′ they wouldn’t build it… Instead it seems to be just the opposite: height restrictions like we’re historic Paris or DC

Is anyone aware of height *minimums* anywhere on the planet? That can very much indeed kill a project, and especially in a place like Raleigh…all the height obsessed folks should be more worried about recruiting companies with the financial heft to lease that much space, and be less focused on forcing developers to build something they are under no obligation to build…

I just don’t understand how this would logistically work. First you propose a 22 story, 315 foot building and change it to a 23 story, 255 foot building. If there is a mix between residential and commercial there are going to be some low ceilings.

So the site is what, like half an acre-ish of actual building footprint? That’d make it like 7 or 8 stories of office (couple more if the reported space subtracts elevators, support columns etc), 1 retail and the rest residential. I know PNC has a louvered utility floor between the office and residential portions as well. So this really isn’t much office space at all…

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